The TII who run national roads in the ROI have gone green and to save some leccy, so they want to reduce their lighting bill.
They propose to reorganise older junctions and use LED. They do have a point about the older interchanges which seem to have economised on poles and used large standards which floodlight the entire area. For instance, in the M1 junction they are experimenting with the standard on the left has 4 bulbs on its left just lighting a field. There is little sign of LED so far on Irish motorways, all are SON, although there is a short section of trial LED near Dublin airport.
I went looking for the new M18/M18 on streetview, but it isn't there yet!
Michael Nolan, the TII chief executive, told the Oireachtas transport committee last week that spending on lighting had been cut as part of an overall 16 per cent reduction in its road maintenance budget to €31.6 million
While there is obvious room for improvement I wouldn't like to see them be too aggressive about this. During the night in Ireland wind often makes up a large part of the supply. As lighting is a very predictable and stable load they could install some battery packs at junctions and only charge these from wind, small windmills could even be positioned near the road. This way they could have the safety benefits of lighting with almost zero impact on global warming.
The traffic on the road uses more energy and few of these are using LEDs for instance.
ROI: TII lighting changes
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